Going Pro
by HellfireSupremacy
Summary: There are people who can become rich and famous, and not let it go to their head. Then there are people who let the money and the power change them. They become...different. Then there's Ace Powers, the greatest trainer who ever lived.


**A little about myself before we start this nonsense. I've been a Pokémon fan pretty much my entire life. I was in 3rd grade when red and blue came out in the United States. That was my first ever foray into the wonderful world of gaming. I've been hooked ever since. I've been writing Fanfics for a while now. My usual stomping grounds are in the Fire Emblem fandom, where I usually just write crude humor fics and outrageous parodies. Lately though I've had a sudden urge to reconnect with my roots, and write something for the series that started my lifelong love affair with gaming. This is not my usual style by any stretch of the imagination, but whatever. Let's see how this plays out. **

GOING PRO

Prologue: Starting Off Small

_"**Oh wow, this is incredible!" Jake savored the taste of medium-well sirloin, fresh off the grill. "I've gotten so use to pork rinds and beef jerky, I almost forgot what good food tastes like!"**_

_"**Come on," Cassie laughed. "Beef jerky isn't that**** bad." **_

_"…**Steak dinner…I still can't believe we can afford this…" Sarah spoke in between bites of delicious brisket. "How did we even find this place?"**_

_"**Heard about it from some trainers on the road," Ace popped a chunk of lump crab meat into his mouth. He remembered the conversation from earlier that week; some sailor had given him the hook-up after Ace rolled his entire crew. "Pietro's Seven Star Dining and Tournament Hall," he repeated the trainer's tip verbatim. "Sunday Night Special: Champs Eat for Free. Dinner on the house for any trainer who can rack up a seven-run winning streak; a 28-streak feeds four."**_

_"**We should bring more people next time." Jake only half-joked. "I don't think Ace was done winning yet!"**_

_"**What can I say," Ace shrugged not-so-modestly. "I'm good at what I do." **_

**_They'd been on the road for close to a year now, 13-year-old champ in the making Ace Powers and his three best friends: Jake, Cassie, and Sarah. They had left home with little in the way of cash; none of them hailing from particularly wealthy families. Jake was the wise-cracking son of a mill worker and a retired school teacher, neither of whom had finances to throw away on their child's gallivanting. Cassie and Sarah were stuck in the same rut as Jake, although Sarah at least had been mature enough to save up some of her own money ahead of time (that had lasted her an astonishing two days on the road). Ace's circumstances were something else altogether. His parents had never given him anything in his entire life except a black eye and a nervous tick, and they saw no reason to give him anything more when he announced he was leaving home with his friends to go on a Pokémon adventure. _**

**_Everything he owned, everything he used, everything he needed, Ace Powers won through competitive battling. He was just that good. _**

**_People assumed that because he was a kid he couldn't handle himself in a fight. Said people were always amazed when Ace swept their entire team with minimal effort and walked away with all their money. _**

**_Even so cash was always tight. Ace Powers could singlehandedly fund his own adventure, no problem. But with four mouths for him to feed—and that's usually what he wound up doing, seeing as how his friends weren't skilled enough as trainers to support themselves—Ace's winnings were often spread too thin. _**

**_On a typical day, anything more expensive than a box of pop-tarts was off limits._**

**_Still, Ace was fine with it. He loved his friends; they were the reason life on the road was still tolerable after so many months of travel. Without Jake's humor or Cassie's songs, what would he do all those long nights in the wilderness, hiking from town to town?_**

**_It would be insufferable. He'd probably drop dead of boredom after a fortnight. Or worse…call it quits and go home. _**

_"**Thanks guys…" Ace allowed himself to go teary eyed for a rare, sentimental moment. "For coming with me…for not letting me go alone. You have no idea what it's meant to me."**_

_"**Man up already. Don't get all sappy on us champ," Jake teased. "We've been mooching off you for a year now. All we do is tag along on your crazy adventures, and you float the bill for all of us. If anything, we should be thanking you." **_

_"**No, seriously guys, I don't think I could do this on my own. Alone every night, going from town to town full of complete strangers; I don't think I'd be able to stand it."**_

_"**Well, that's why we're here," Sarah piped up. "To keep you on the straight and narrow."**_

_"**That and because we love you," Cassie leaned over with a girlish grin and gave him an innocent peck on the cheek. "You're the best Ace!"**_

_"**Thanks guys…" he'd said it once before, but it bore repeating. "Just promise me one thing. Promise that whatever happens, we'll stick together. You know how I get sometimes, when I'm on a hot streak and I feel like I can take on the entire world. Just don't ever let me wander off on my own. I don't wanna play it solo. Either we go pro together, or we don't go at all…"**_

_"**Deal," Jake reached across the table and shook on it. "Together, or not all. I'll hold you to that till the day you die."**_

_"**You better…"**_

**

* * *

**In all his travels across Shinnoh, rookie trainer Sam Duncan had never once seen a Pokémon Center as crowded as the one he had just stumbled across in Lakewood Heights. He'd been to every major city from Hearthhome to Veilstone, and on a good day their centers weren't half this busy. Looking at the mass of people crowded around the big screen TV in the trainers lounge, he had to wonder. What were this many trainers doing out and about in a podunk mountain town so far off the beaten path?

"What's going on?" Sam asked one of the nurses in between sips of fresh lemonade. "Are you guys always this packed?"

"You really don't know?" the head nurse teased with a good natured smile. "You don't hang around town much, do you?"

"Nope," Sam shook his head and took another sip of lemonade. "Just passing through, training with my machop. I'm from Oreborough actually."

"Oh? Do you live by the mines?"

"Not really…I'm more from the downtown area. My house is right up the street from the museum."

"Oh…well…a lot of people I know live down by the mines now," the nurse spoke sadly. "Economy's been slowing down lately; can't find a job outside of the cities. All my friends are moving out of town; a bunch of them just went down to Oreburough to work in the coal plants."

"Bummer…" Sam didn't really know what else to say. He hadn't been keeping up with current events on the road. The only news he really paid attention to were the professional trainer rankings from the Worlad Pokémon League Pro Tour. Ace Powers was still the number one trainer in the world. Palmer and Cynthia had been fighting for the number two slot all season. Buck and Aaron rounded out the top five. "So, if everyone's moving out why is this place still so busy?" he wondered out loud.

"Normally it's not," the nurse answered. "Tonight is special. Ace Powers is getting inducted into the WPL hall of fame." She sounded absolutely ecstatic about the news. "It's a celebration for the entire town."

"Oh yeah, I heard about that." All the commentators had been talking about it last night on the Battle Net Round-Table Panel, Sam remembered. There had been a clear generational split in their opinions. The old-school hardliners kept complaining that Ace had only been on the pro tour for six seasons, and that it was inappropriate to honor him at such a young age when he still had his whole adult career ahead of him. The younger commentators pointed out that at age twenty he had already earned more titles, broken more records, and endorsed more product than Lance "the Dragon-Man" Murdock could boast for his entire 30 year career.

"Everyone keeps saying that he's too young to be a hall-of-famer, but come on, look what he's done! Undefeated in his rookie year; number one in the pro tour standings for three consecutive seasons. How about that 1,000 run winning streak in the Battle Tower, or those record-breaking ratings on Battle Net? And the endorsements: 15 million dollars for a 20 second spot with Silph CO. How is that not hall of fame material?"

"My, aren't you a smart little boy!" The nurse seemed genuinely amazed that a twelve-year-old could sound so insightful. Nevermind that he was just parroting what he had heard some 'expert' say on a sports news talk-show. "If you're that much of an Ace fan, you'll definitely want to stay for the night. Lakewood Heights is Ace Powers' hometown. Everyone here knew him growing up; they'll all have stories to tell you."

"Really!?" Sam's eyes lit up with the glimmer of hero-worship so common in celebrity obsessed pop-culture. "Did you ever meet him?"

"All the time, back when he was first starting out as a trainer. I had just become a nurse, and this was the only Pokemon Center in town. He'd stop in at least once a day to rest up in between training bouts with his chimchar and his elekid," she recalled the seven year old memory as though it had happened earlier that week. "He was such a sweet boy; I always felt so bad for him. Came from a broken home you know. Single mother—about my age now--got pregnant back in high school and didn't have the heart to give him up. She couldn't raise him on her own, and god knows his dad was never around to help. Always in at out of jail that one; I hear that when he did show up at home all he ever did was beat the poor boy."

"That's terrible!" Sam was once more at a loss for words. What more could he say?

"He seemed happy though. That's the messed up part," the nurse shrugged. "Parents treated him like garbage; never missed an opportunity to remind him how worthless he was. How badly him being born had screwed up both their lives, how much better life would have been if they could have scraped together enough money to get an abortion. Every day for twelve years, that's what he had to put up with. You'd think growing up like that would mess with a kid's head; make him lonely and bitter. Every time I saw him though, he was always smiling and laughing with his friends."

"So that's why he never talks about his family in front of reporters..." For the first time, Sam came to realize how little he knew of the super-star trainer he and all his rookie friends worshipped like a god. They idolized the image. Behind the image there was a person, and behind the person there was a story. A story he was only now hearing. "I always thought they just weren't very close. I had no idea. I…I've never heard any of this before."

"Yeah, you're never going to hear him talk about his childhood or his parents in those goofy interviews he does. Put a microphone in front of him and he goes straight for the glammer. He'll tell you how awesome his life is, how famous he's getting as a pro trainer, how many battles he's won, how much money he's earned. He'll thank his team, his fans, his agent; maybe even give a shout-out to the rest of the league. Never mentions his mom and pop though. Acts like they don't even exist; won't say a thing about them, good or bad. He remembers though, everything they did to him he remembers. That crazy mom of his still lives up the road, by the old trailer park. Ace hasn't sent her a dime since he went pro. He just brought himself another four million dollar beach house in Sunnyshore. Imagine! His own mother's living next to a trailer park, and he's buying up Sunnyshore. He remembers…the people who treated him poorly," the nurse sighed. Quietly, discretely she added "I just wish he wouldn't forget the people who treated him right…"

She closed up after that; said nothing more about Ace Powers or the people around town who knew his story. It was as though she had broken some hideously forbidden taboo; said something she immediately regretted saying and wished she could take back.

_I just wish he wouldn't forget the people who treated him right..._

Of Ace's broken childhood she had spoken with a smile and good cheer, yet in that esoteric reference to the good people in his life there was such immeasurable sadness Sam could not comprehend. It seemed to him an invocation of tragedy; the dredging of a most horrendous memory—a tale of woe and anguish—that everyone wanted desperately to forget.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam blinked in confusion. "He bailed on his friends when he got rich and famous?"

The nurse never answered. She just smiled a sad, half-hearted smile and turned away. "I'm sorry…" was all she would say. "I shouldn't have said anything…"

Sam shrugged. He played it off like he didn't care, but now he was more curious than ever. Who was the man behind the legend? Who was Ace Powers?

The rookie pulled another bottle of lemonade from his backpack and took a few quick sips before heading on back to the trainers lounge. The place really was packed. There looked to only one comfortable seat left in the entire room; a four-seat couch with only three occupants lodged in the back corner, away from the exuberant crowd. Two young ladies and a young man; they looked to be about the same age as Ace Powers.

_Every time I saw him though, he was always smiling and laughing with his friends_.

Whereas the rest of the assembly appeared jocular and lighthearted—immersed in the celebration of a hometown hero—these three just seemed annoyed and bothered. The two girls sat next to each other. The one on the right was short and skinny; a petite girl with a fair complexion, dark piercing eyes, and medium-length black hair. She wore a simple blue sun-dress and a pair of flip-flops, appropriate for the season. The one on the left was taller, tanner, and much more filled out. Her eyes were an icy blue, her hair a dirty blonde. Sam couldn't tell what she was wearing; from the neck down she was completely wrapped in a comfort blanket, covered in used tissues and watery stains. She looked as though she had been crying. She didn't look as annoyed as the other two. She just seemed…sad. Like a piece of her life was missing and it pained her to be reminded of it.

_I just wish he wouldn't forget the people who treated him right..._

The young man sat on the other side of the girl wrapped in the blanket, trying to comfort her as best he knew how. He had a lean and muscular build, a youthful face, deep brown eyes, and a head full of dark unkempt hair lined with sideburns and a stubbled beard. In one hand he held his friend. In the other he held a half empty bottle of Guinness Extra Stout; just strong enough to take t he edge off. He wasn't sad. He was angry.

No one bothered them. In fact, the crowd seemed to give all three of them a wide berth. There was an unspoken understanding that they were not here to celebrate, but to mourn. There was a history between them; not quite forgotten, not quite water under the bridge. Bad blood that no one else wanted to get involved with. Only Sam Duncan, rookie trainer. Only a child who didn't know any better.

_Everyone here knew him growing up; they'll all have stories to tell you._

* * *

**That wasn't so bad now, was it? Let's see what the fans think. R&R ftw. The Pokémon fandom looks to be a bit more active than the one I'm used to writing in, so hopefully the review pool won't be so stagnant.**

**HellfireSupremacy, signing out.**


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